1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for generating control signals to perform a seek operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer hard disk drives include one or more disks of magnetic storage medium and a disk drive head assembly to read and write data on the magnetic storage medium. Magnoresistive (MR) heads typically include a write element comprised of a thin film inductive head and a read element comprised of a sensor. MR heads for the disk surfaces of the disk drive are affixed to an actuator or arm that glides across the disk surface to position the head at different track locations. Current is passed to a voice coil motor (VCM) to position the actuator with respect to the disk surface. The amount of torque applied to the actuator is governed by the amount of current in the VCM. The VCM comprises the coil that receives the current and two magnets. During operations, the disk drive components, such as the VCM, can produce vibrations and oscillations induced as a result of the resonance of the components. Such vibrations may result in undesirable head variations and tracking errors.
Two factors that effect the access time that lapses before the head can access the disk include seek and settle time. The seek time is the time required for the head to move between tracks. The settle time is the amount of time required, after the actuator has moved the head assembly during a seek, for the heads to stabilize sufficiently for the data to begin to be read or write. The characteristics of the disk drive system and environment can produce oscillations that may increase the settle time and thereby degrade disk performance. Further, error may result if the head overshoots or undershoots the desired track.
In current disk drive systems, to correct for tracking errors resulting from noise and vibrations from components such as the VCM, the disk drive controller will read servo information indicating the actual current position and compare that value read to the desired position. This difference is known as the Position Error Signal (PES). The drive controller will then calculate a current to apply to the VCM to correct any variation in the measured position versus desired position. Thus, the current supplied to the VCM to apply torque to the actuator arm is a function both of the amount of current in the voice coil supplied by an amplifier controlled by the drive controller and by position feedback adjustments based on position information read from the data heads.
Notwithstanding the current efforts to reduce the seek and settle time, there is a continued need in the art to provide further techniques to optimize the seek and settle time of the file system.